Night Terrors, Stomach Bugs, and "Big Girl Beds"

So much to talk about!! I'll get right to it... lately, Karina has been waking up with night terrors. The first couple times, we just thought she woke up screaming/crying for no real reason, maybe a nightmare or something, but when we got her and picked her up she was really unresponsive to our efforts to comfort her. She almost seemed like she was having a seizure, with erratic, seemingly uncontrolled arm movements. She just wouldn't stop screaming, and definitely seemed out of it, even though her eyes were open and she was looking around. After this happened twice, we looked into it a little, and we realized that she was having night terrors. I guess it can be pretty common for kids at this age. It's a really upsetting thing to watch your child scream in such pain and anguish, and not be able to do anything to help her. When kids have night terrors, you're supposed to just sit next to them and make sure they don't hurt themselves and let the night terror pass on its own. Picking them up or talking to them is supposed to be a bad thing that actually makes the experience even worse for the poor kid. So we've been trying that, and after about 10-15 minutes, it does usually pass, and she's ok again... Most of the times, we're pretty certain it's triggered by a lack of nap during the day or if she just didn't sleep very well during her nap.

A few weeks ago, right before these night terrors occurred, Karina woke up screaming one night and we did as we usually do and let her cry without going into the room, because 90% of the times she's woken up like that, she goes back to sleep on her own within 5 minutes. After about 5 minutes passed, and we were just about to go get her, she stopped and went back to sleep. Kris thought, maybe I should go in there and at least wipe her face, because it's probably soaked in tears and what not... I told her, just leave her, she just fell back asleep and you'll end up waking her. Kris decided to go in anyway, and thank goodness! Karina had thrown up everywhere! Poor girl had vomited and was then laying in it! Turns out she caught that stomach bug that has been going around up here lately. We cleaned her up, changed sheets and put her back to bed... a couple of days later, Kris started to not feel so great... then later that night, I wasn't feeling so great. Long story short, both Kris and I got knocked out really good by the stomach bug. Luckily, most of our woes occurred after the girls were in bed for the night.

Alright, enough "bad" stories. For the first time since the girls have been born, we've finally booked ourselves a real vacation. We've taken short trips here and there, but never one that required an airplane. In a couple months, we are going down to Florida for a week! Grammy and Papa have a condo down there right near the beach, so we'll stay there. It's close enough to Orlando, so we're thinking we'll take a day trip to Disney World one day. I'm sure the girls will love that. We're very excited about the trip, but also very nervous about how the flight is going to go. Hopefully the girls will love it, and do great. We're flying JetBlue, so at least we'll have the TV screens for them to watch if all else fails haha!

In order for that trip to be a success, the girls are going to have to learn to sleep on real beds. They're way too big for Pack N' Plays now, and there are no cribs at the condo. There are, however, two twin beds that they'll use. So, in an effort to start training them now, we decided to pull the fronts of their cribs off last night. I did install a bed rail, though, so they don't fall out of bed in the middle of the night. They really like to curl up right against the edges of the crib. But the bed rail still allows them to get in and out of bed on their own. To keep an eye on them during this training period, I also installed a night vision camera in the room, so we can see if they're actually sleeping, or if they got out of bed to play with their toys. They did pretty well their first night. Reeny stayed in her bed, but Kath got out a couple times to walk around, and even climbed into Reeny's bed at one point. After about 5 or 10 minutes, though, she had gone back to her own bed, and went to sleep. Success!! Naptime today, however, didn't actually include any napping. They refused to stay in their beds. As we watched them on the camera, I would yell to tell them to get back into their beds, and they would... but then not even a minute later, they'd be out again. We were afraid of this... the shades in the room don't really darken it that much, so it's usually fairly bright in the room during naptime. So that doesn't help. At least at night, it's dark in there, and they know they should be sleeping. It might take us a week or two (hopefully no longer) to get them properly napping in there, without getting out of their bed to play. Even tonight, Kath got out of bed at one point, but we yelled up and told her to go back into her bed and she did... and then they both went to sleep. So it seems they'll do just fine at nights... it's the daytime nap we have to figure out. It's only been one day, so hopefully it'll get better.

Earlier today Randy, Julie, and Max came over for a playdate. We also planned to go out for lunch together, as they had a gift card they wanted to use for a restaurant that just happened to be in our neck of the woods. The girls had a really great time playing with Max, as they hadn't seen him since their birthday party. Max seemed to have a fantastic time, and really loved the big slide we have in our great room. Lunch went really well too. It was nice to hang out with them, as it had been a few months since we all got together.

Finally, I leave you with a video of the girls singing their ABCs. They've been able to do this for a while now, but I've been incredibly lazy with the camcorder of late. I keep saying "I gotta get that on video", and then just never do. They're really good at singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider too... so one of these days, I'll get that one taped Anyway, here's the ABCs... and listen for Karina's funny "break" in the video

Singing the ABCs

[February 4 -21, 2010 Photos]